Middle East & North Africa

20 Mar 2020; MEMO: Forces of Libya’s UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) neutralized 25 militia members loyal to renegade General Khalifa Haftar early Friday during clashes in the capital, Anadolu reports.

Tripoli-based Febrayer TV reported that troops taking part in the GNA’s Volcano of Rage Operation and the militias clashed in the Ain Zara region south of Tripoli.

20 Mar 2020; MEMO: The Palestinian Prisoner Society said yesterday that four Palestinian inmates have contracted the novel coronavirus in an Israeli prison.

In a press release, the non-governmental organisation said the Israel Prison Service informed it that the prisoners caught the virus in Megiddo Prison. The virus was brought into the prison by a detainee who had been interrogated at the occupation’s Petah Tikva Investigation Centre.

20 March 2020; AFP: Early one morning in Cairo, volunteers paddle their kayaks across the Nile, fishing out garbage from the mighty waterway that gave birth to Egyptian civilisation but now faces multiple threats.

Egypt's lifeline since Pharaonic days and the source of 97 percent of its water is under massive strain from pollution and climate change and now the threat of a colossal dam being built far upstream in Ethiopia.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar has removed exit visa requirements for an additional segment of its foreign labour force, including some of those working in the oil and gas industry, according to official tweets posted on Friday.

Qatar in 2018 eliminated exit visas for many foreign migrant workers. But the reform did not apply to domestic workers, government and public institution staff, the oil and gas sector, and workers employed at sea and in agriculture.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Troops from the U.S.-led coalition pulled out from a base in western Iraq on Thursday as part of a planned drawdown, Iraqi and coalition officials said, while training activities by the coalition were suspended amid concerns about the coronavirus.

Coalition forces withdrew from al-Qaim on the Iraq-Syria border, with others planned across Iraq in the coming weeks. The plan was in the works since late last year, a senior coalition military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Two Turkish soldiers were killed Thursday in a rocket attack in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said.

A ministry statement said a third soldier was wounded in the attack, which it said was carried out by “radical groups.”

Turkey’s artillery units immediately mounted a powerful retaliation, the ministry said, but did not provide further details.

19 Mar 2020; MEMO: On Wednesday the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Ministry announced a ban on citizens from travelling abroad until further notice, as a precautionary measure to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

19 Mar 2020; MEMO: Over the past 12 hours, more than 60,000 Israelis have registered to obtain unemployment benefits after losing their jobs, as a result of the decisions taken by the government to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. This brings the total number of people seeking financial support from the start of this month to 180,000.

Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Wednesday that 60,000 Israelis: “Have registered to obtain unemployment benefits.”

19 Mar 2020; MEMO: Rights groups operating in the Gaza Strip called on Wednesday for Israel to allow medical equipment and medicines needed for the fight against coronavirus to be allowed into the besieged enclave.

19 Mar 2020; MEMO: A court in Turkey sentenced three men to 125 years in prison each over the 2015 drowning of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi whose death became a tragic symbol of the refugee crisis in Europe as a result of conflicts in Syria and the wider region after a harrowing image of the baby face-down on a Turkish beach went viral online.